By Li Yuchen
At 19:29 on May 22, 2026, an explosion of gas occurred in the underground of Liushenyu Coal Mine, which is under the jurisdiction of Shanxi Tongzhou Group, in Shangzhuang Village, Qinhe Town, Qinyuan County, Changzhi City, Shanxi Province. At the time of the incident, there were 247 workers on duty.
However, the real reversal did not happen underground, but in the reporting: once the instructions arrived, the number of casualties jumped from 8 to 82, a tenfold increase, with no new explosions or collapses in between.
Different reports have two time descriptions for the incident: 19:29 and 19:35. This article uses the 19:29 time from the emergency management authorities.
According to the rescue timeline successively disclosed by Xinhua News Agency, from early morning to afternoon, the official reporting of the number of casualties showed a reverse trajectory.
The line “release information in a timely and accurate manner” should not have appeared in the instructions, but it did.
The facts are as follows.
On the morning of May 23, CCTV.com reported: 4 people died, 90 people were trapped underground, and 16 were in critical condition.
At 07:19 on May 23, Xinhua News Agency reported: 201 people were safely lifted, 8 people died, and 38 people were still being searched for underground.
At 09:23 on May 23, Xinhua News Agency released important instructions from the central government regarding the accident. CCTV News put these instructions on the headline screen at 10:23.
2 hours and 23 minutes later, at 12:46 on May 23, the Xinhua News Agency client changed the number to:
More than 50 people died.
Another 20 minutes later, at 13:06 on May 23, multiple media outlets almost simultaneously released a new statement:
Finally, it became 82 people died and 9 people missing.
At 14:00, Xinhua News Agency confirmed the final report: 82 dead, 9 missing, 123 people were sent for medical treatment, and 33 people returned home safely. Some media outlets then updated the report to 90 people dead, based on the figures of 82 dead and 9 missing. The title of this article, “tenfold increase”, corresponds to the numbers 8 to 82, which is about 10.25 times.
From 07:19, when 8 people died, to 14:00, when 82 people died, 6 hours and 41 minutes passed. There were no new explosions or collapses in between. The underground was still the same.
The only thing that changed was the denominator.
It just increased tenfold.
This is what happened on the morning of May 23. When the central instructions were displayed on the CCTV screen, the local reports were still at the safe level of 8 deaths. This time, a sentence about information release was specifically added to the standard accountability template. Within a few hours, the local reports caught up to 82.
Now, looking back at that timeline, it seems very quiet.
Liushenyu is a high-gas mine with a sloping shaft, 6 shafts, and a designed production capacity of 1.2 million tons/year. At the time of the incident, it was the middle shift miners’ time to go underground, with 247 people working underground.
These 247 people are in compliance with the general mine standards.
According to the “Regulations on Limiting the Number of Personnel Entering the Mine (Pit) per Shift” (Mine Safety [2023] No. 129) issued by the National Mine Safety Administration in 2023, the maximum number of people entering the mine per shift in a normal production mine is no more than 500. 247 is still half the distance from the upper limit.
However, Liushenyu is a high-gas mine. The same document No. 129 has stricter limit clauses for mines with serious disasters such as coal and gas outbursts and high gas, whether it is applicable and the specific level, needs to be based on the official investigation conclusion. This article does not force a conclusion.
What can be confirmed is: 247 people went underground, which did not violate the upper limit of the number of people entering the general mine.
More than 80 of them did not come up, and it did not trigger the upper limit either.
The document stipulates the upper limit of the number of people entering the mine, but does not stipulate the upper limit of the number of deaths in a single accident.
The company involved in the accident is called Shanxi Tongzhou Group Liushenyu Coal Industry Co., Ltd., which is one of the mines under Tongzhou Group. The group itself is called Shanxi Tongzhou Coal and Coke Group Co., Ltd., established in 1995, and is privately owned. According to public information from Jinshang Club and Shanxi Merchant Network, the group has 9 units, with assets of 1.5 billion yuan and more than 6,000 employees. It is a “leading enterprise and major taxpayer” in Qinyuan County.
The chairman of the group, Ren Tiezhu, has served as the 9th and 10th People’s Congress representatives of Shanxi Province, and has served as the vice president of the Shanxi Private Enterprise Association, the president of the Changzhi Metallurgical Industry Association, and the vice president of the Changzhi Guangcai Business Promotion Association. The honors he has received include “Shanxi Labor Model”, “Shanxi Outstanding Entrepreneur”, and “Top Ten Outstanding Private Entrepreneurs in Changzhi City”.
After the accident, according to reports from the Xinhua News Agency client:
The person in charge of the enterprise involved has been taken into control according to law.
Those titles are still there.
According to public reports, Liushenyu Coal Industry was twice administratively punished by the Qinyuan County Emergency Management Bureau in 2025, and continued to produce after rectification.
After the fine, the mine continued to operate.
The words on the fine and the people working underground belong to two independently operating systems. One is responsible for issuing fines, and the other is responsible for coal mining.
Qinyuan County needs a private coal enterprise with an annual output of 1.2 million tons, 1724 insured employees, and high tax payments to be a local pillar. Shanxi Provincial Safety Committee Office’s No. 1 document in 2025 has already listed Liushenyu in the coal mine classification list of that year, which is a regular mark for high-gas mines, meaning that this mine needs to be closely monitored.
Monitoring is one thing, but stopping production is another.
If a major taxpayer stops, the finance, employment, and social stability will also stop.
So the way to monitor is to issue fines.
Issuing fines and coal mining, the two systems are running. It was not until the gas exploded that the two systems met in the same table.
This kind of thing happened before 2026.
According to the investigation report disclosed by the Ministry of Emergency Management, on February 22, 2023, the open-pit coal mine of Xinying Coal Industry in Alashan Left Banner, Inner Mongolia, collapsed, resulting in 53 deaths and 6 injuries, with a direct economic loss of 204.3 million yuan. The report stated: The coal mine seriously violated the construction and production regulations, the construction unit violated the law and took risks, the intermediary supervision was fraudulent, the supervision was not strict, and the local party committee and government were negligent in their management and supervision.
According to the investigation report of Shanxi Province published by China News Network, at 6:30 on November 16, 2023, a fire broke out in the second-floor bathroom of the Yongju Coal Industry United Construction Office Building in Lishi District, Lüliang, resulting in 26 deaths and 38 injuries. There was a detail in this accident that was repeatedly mentioned later:
No one reported the fire within 20 minutes after it started.
The final investigation report was released on April 23, 2024, and 42 public officials were held accountable.
On March 11, 2024, the coal bin collapse accident in the underground of Taoyuan Xinlong Coal Industry in Zhongyang, Shanxi, resulted in 7 deaths. On July 7, 2024, the water inrush accident in the Dongshan Lijiagou Coal Industry in Qingxu County, Taiyuan, Shanxi, resulted in 3 deaths.
The list can be listed again.
There are also figures nationwide. According to the public report of the Ministry of Emergency Management, in 2024, the number of deaths per million tons of coal mine was 0.059, a year-on-year decrease of 37.2%; in 2024, there were 21,800 various production safety accidents, with 19,600 deaths, a year-on-year decrease of 11% and 7.6% respectively.
Another version of these figures is:
According to different statistical calibers, the cumulative number of deaths in domestic coal mine disasters since 1949 is in the hundreds of thousands.
Looking back at May 23, the cleanest thing is the rescue timeline left by Xinhua News Agency itself.
In the early morning, 4 deaths. At 07:19, 8 deaths. At 10:23, CCTV broadcast the instructions. At 12:46, more than 50 deaths. At 13:06, 82 deaths. At 14:00, the final report was 82 deaths and 9 missing, and some media followed up with 90 deaths.
So this is what the report of a mine accident looks like. There are still 9 people who have not been found in the Liushenyu mine. The 82 people who have been found were slowly emerging from the reporting caliber in the few hours after the central instructions were implemented.
247 people were underground, and 247 were in compliance. 8, 82, and 90 are also in compliance. Issuing fines is in compliance, stopping production is not in compliance; the initial report is in compliance, and the follow-up report is in compliance. Ren Tiezhu is in compliance as a People’s Congress representative, the mine under his jurisdiction was fined twice and continued to produce in compliance, and he was taken into control after the incident in compliance.
Everyone is doing things according to the regulations. The regulations themselves are not the problem. The problem is the 90 people underground. The numbers were never reported all at once. Report one level first, wait for instructions, and then report another level. This is the process.
When the search and rescue was still underway in the Liushenyu mine, according to CCTV News, the State Council’s instructions were also issued. The instructions required “to make every effort to search for the trapped personnel, treat the injured, do a good job in the aftermath, release information in a timely and accurate manner, and investigate the cause of the accident as soon as possible and hold those responsible accountable according to law and regulations”.
There is a sentence in these instructions:
“Release information in a timely and accurate manner”.
The instructions template usually cares about search and rescue, treatment, aftermath, and accountability, and cares about how things are handled. This time, the highest decision-making level specifically set aside a line to care about how the information is released.
There is only one situation that can make the instructions add this sentence: the above has already predicted that the “information is not timely and not accurate” itself.
Li Yuchen’s article is based on the dust
Written on May 23, 2026
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